TWC, Bright House forge new tru2way deal with Samsung

Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks have both signed a letter of commitment with Samsung for the continued development, purchase and deployment of Samsung’s tru2way-enabled set-top boxes. The new agreement also covers Time Warner Cable’s first second-source DVR.

Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks have worked to get tru2way-enabled set-top boxes out into subscribers’ homes over the past few years. To date, Time Warner Cable has deployed more than 2 million tru2way boxes, which include 400,000 boxes from Samsung. Time Warner also conducted a trial several years ago with a tru2way TV from Samsung.

“We look to offer our customers advanced set-top boxes with features that are simple and easy to use,” said Mike Hayashi, executive vice president of advanced engineering for Time Warner Cable. “We have been a leader in the rollout of tru2way devices, and we are continuing to grow our relationship with Samsung, a CE company dedicated to the development of new equipment, meeting the necessary standards and offering attractive feature sets.”

Bright House Networks has installed OCAP Digital Navigator in a number of its systems, as well as tru2way-enabled set-top boxes. Advance/Newhouse, which runs Bright House Networks, took control of its joint cable operations with Time Warner Cable in 2003, but the two cable operators still work closely together on projects.

“We are thrilled to have worked closely with Time Warner Cable to launch tru2way on our family of cable set-tops, including the SMT-H3090 and SMT-H3270 high-definition DVRs,” said Thomas Rhee, senior vice president of new business development for Samsung. “As in Korea, we look forward to the expansion of tru2way in North America.”

Time Warner Cable and Samsung also recently inked a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that focuses on collaborating in development of better home networking offerings for entertainment.

Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks are the nation’s second- and sixth-largest cable operators, respectively. Along with Comcast, Cox Communications, Charter Communications and Cablevision, they signed an MOU last year with leading CE companies, including Sony, Panasonic, Samsung and LG Electronics, to work together on the development of tru2way products and deployments.

One of the terms of last year’s MOU was that Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox, Cablevision and Bright House would have network support for tru2way in the headends that serve all of their digital cable systems by July 1, but all five missed the deadline.

On Wednesday, another element of the MOU kicked in that required the cable operators to include tru2way middleware in 20 percent of their set-top boxes that are purchased after July 1.